How I work
when things get difficult.

The division head of a mid-sized IT company in the middle of a transformation has been doubting his long-serving head of sales, employed in Italy, for months: new strategic initiatives fail to materialise, the sales team receives little leadership despite organisational change, and requests from HR on standard processes are answered only grudgingly. Intervention talks lead nowhere; any recognisable interest in improvement is missing. A separation would be politically sensitive and, given Italian dismissal protection, very expensive – the head of sales has been with the company for 20 years and is well connected.

Within four weeks I held several confidential sparring sessions with the division head. First we separated facts from hurt feelings: what can be documented, what is interpretation? Building on that, we developed three scenarios – a clear expectations meeting with a probation framework, a redefined role, an orderly separation – and played through the consequences of each: for the team, for customers, for involving employee representatives. We prepared the first conversation word for word, including the reactions to expect.

The division head led the expectations meeting himself – prepared rather than impulsive. After three months, an amicable, face-saving change of role with a clean handover was in place: the head of sales kept his status and now concentrates again on the customer business where his strengths lie; the leadership position was refilled with a clear leadership focus. No customer losses, no unrest in the team – and none of the further departures from sales that a delayed or escalated approach would most likely have cost.

The founder’s daughter, trained in business administration, takes over as managing director of a mid-sized skilled-trades company. The workforce is shaped by her father; two master craftsmen had hoped for the role themselves. She needs a counterpart outside the family and company logic.

Over the first quarter I accompanied her in weekly sparring: her own positioning and how to deal with resistance, a sober assessment of the leadership team (loyalty to the person or to the task?), how to approach the two passed-over candidates, drawing a line with the still-present father, the first visible decisions of her own. We aligned every session with concrete upcoming appointments – no theory.

Both critical master craftsmen stayed on board – one with expanded responsibility, one with a clearly bounded role. The division of roles with the senior was fixed in writing. After 100 days, an anonymous pulse survey showed the leadership team rating the clarity of the new leadership considerably higher than expected.

Through the compliance whistleblowing channel, the HR department of an international industrial company receives an anonymous allegation that a division head treats female employees in a demeaning way and makes suggestive remarks. The managing director initially finds the allegation hard to believe – the division head was considered a person of trust. At the same time it is clear: getting this wrong in either direction would be risky.

We met for ad-hoc sparring the very next day. First we sorted the ground: what does the duty of care require, what protects the accused, and which steps belong strictly in the hands of HR and external legal counsel? Together we set up a fair, documented review process; I prepared the managing director for his own role in it: stay neutral, do not prejudge, do not play down. In parallel, a communication line took shape in case the allegation became known internally.

The review ran in an orderly and discreet manner; the externally supported investigation confirmed parts of the allegation, and the division head received clear conditions and a development programme. A company-wide awareness campaign followed. No labour court proceedings, no public escalation – and a clear signal to leadership and workforce alike that reports are taken seriously.

An automotive supplier merges a German and a Dutch plant: a prospective reduction of 30 production jobs, alongside 15 new roles in automation and data analytics. Until now the workforce has known only creeping downsizing through unfilled vacancies; the Dutch works council announces resistance. Internal HR is fully absorbed by day-to-day business.

Over twelve months I built an overall dramaturgy: we sequenced communication so that the target picture and the build-up became visible first, then the reduction – never the other way round. Before every formal consultation step I sought an informal preliminary conversation with the works council chair; qualification paths from production into the new roles were made visible early as a genuine offer. I prepared all four leaders for separation and perspective conversations in half-day case workshops. The reconciliation of interests and the social plan took shape early, legally supported by a specialist law firm. With the affected teams we established monthly update rounds with open Q&A, complemented by a question inbox.

Reconciliation of interests and social plan were concluded without a conciliation committee. Seven employees moved internally into the new roles via qualification. Attrition among unaffected key performers remained virtually unchanged during the transition year; rumours and grapevine – the frequently underestimated real risk of such projects – were markedly reduced by the fixed information rhythm.

A software company relocates technical support to its existing site in Malaysia; 25 positions in Germany are affected. The news has leaked early, the mood has turned, and the first key performers from unaffected areas voice thoughts of resigning.

First we stabilised the situation: honest immediate communication from the division lead (what has been decided, what is open, when who will get clarity), followed by a fixed weekly information rhythm. I created separate formats for those affected and those remaining: perspectives, terms and application support on one side; future picture, workload and knowledge transfer on the other. We set up the knowledge transfer to Malaysia as a paid, appreciative project with a bonus logic and secondments – rather than as the insult of ‘train your own successor’.

The unwanted attrition impulses outside the affected area stopped after three weeks. The knowledge transfer was completed in full; service quality remained largely stable throughout the handover. Two thirds of those affected had a follow-on perspective – internal or external – by their leaving date.

At a supplier in the spare-parts market, talks on a reorganisation have been deadlocked for three months. Both sides now communicate only in writing and consult lawyers in the background; the works council feels ambushed, management feels blocked. The managing director wants out of the escalation spiral without abandoning the reorganisation.

First I analysed the history of the escalation: the cardinal error lay at the start – the works council had not been involved early and had learnt key points through the grapevine. On that basis we set up a restart: a personal one-to-one between the managing director and the works council chair, prepared in sparring, including an honest admission of the communication error. I then developed a structured negotiation architecture with agreed ground rules, information packages and interim milestones – oriented towards interests rather than positions: job security and procedural respect on the works council side, pace and predictability on the company side.

The negotiations were concluded within four weeks – with a site-security commitment as the counterpart for flexibility in implementation. More important than the conclusion itself: a monthly conversation between managing director and works council chair, accompanied by HR, was established alongside the formal committee work, so that the next change does not start from zero trust again.

A global industrial group (corporate language English) acquires a Spanish family business to integrate its know-how. The core HR difficulty shows early: neither the workforce nor the Spanish managing director speaks dependable English – the group’s standard integration machinery would run into a void. The success of the deal hangs on precisely the people the group cannot reach linguistically.

In the HR due diligence I examined, alongside the classic fields (personnel structure, remuneration including collective agreements, pension and bonus obligations, pending proceedings – legally assessed by a Spanish law firm), two frequently overlooked areas: a key-person analysis (knowledge holders, informal leaders, dependence on the owner-manager) and language capability as an explicitly rated integration risk, with a costed action budget in the deal paper rather than a footnote. In the post-merger integration we concluded retention agreements with the key knowledge holders before the closing announcement; every core message went out bilingually (ES + EN), delivered by local leaders. We involved the Comité de Empresa early and respectfully, a tiered language programme followed role requirements, tandems linked group functions with their Spanish counterparts, and all integration bodies ran bilingually for 18 months, with professional interpreting in critical meetings. The Spanish managing director received a clearly defined role in the new set-up, together with confidential sparring and language coaching – preserving his standing was the precondition for the workforce to carry the integration.

None of the twelve defined key knowledge holders left the company in the first year; the Spanish managing director stayed on board. The integration milestones (systems, reporting, sales integration) were reached on schedule – in the integration team’s assessment above all because communication never failed for language reasons.

At a retail company, two thirds of a 20-person specialist department leave within 18 months – far above the company average. Exit interviews point to fundamentally good working conditions but a weak leader. The management does not want to replace the team lead: personal ties exist.

First I objectified the situation: I analysed the exit data systematically and held confidential team interviews until recurring patterns became visible. We then confronted the team lead with the facts in a prepared three-way conversation with the management: impact rather than intent, clear expectations, a clear timeframe. Afterwards I accompanied him for six months in one-to-ones built around his real leadership situations: delegation with genuine decision authority, feedback without micromanaging, dealing with his own perfectionism.

In the following year the department’s attrition fell back to company level; one resignation was reversed in a retention conversation. The team lead himself later described the facts conversation as the turning point – ‘uncomfortable, but concrete for the first time’.

In a mid-sized mechanical engineering company, the heads of production and sales have been blocking each other for over a year: barbed remarks in meetings, escalating emails copied to management, projects behind schedule, teams absorbing the conflict. The management shies away from confrontation and sits the problem out.

I took on the mediation in four sessions: individual preliminary talks to clarify the mandate, then joint sessions in which we separated the structural from the relationship component. The analysis showed: at the core lay a never-resolved interface conflict (approval authority for deviations) that had become personal over the years. We resolved the interface question as a factual matter with the management; the two of them worked through the relationship level in the mediation – with concrete agreements on communication channels and a follow-up session after eight weeks.

A written mediation agreement, the follow-up session honoured, no more escalation emails to management. The joint project was completed on schedule. The management also gained a structural insight: three further interfaces with unresolved authority were cleaned up pre-emptively.

A services company has promoted four specialists to team leads within a year – without preparation. The consequences: avoided feedback conversations, delegation back up the line, first complaints from the teams. A standard leadership training changed little; the next level has scant capacity to develop the young leaders itself, and HR is set up primarily for operations.

As a foundation I delivered a compact session on the most relevant leadership topics – and building on it I developed a case-workshop series over six months: three hours a month, working exclusively on real situations the participants brought along (the overdue feedback conversation, the low performer, the former colleague who does not accept the new role). We prepared each situation and simulated it where useful; the participants then held it for real and brought the outcome back for review in the next session. In addition, each participant received two confidential one-to-one sessions for their most delicate cases.

All four held at least two previously avoided conversations for real during the programme. Upward delegation to the division lead dropped noticeably; two smouldering low-performance cases were properly documented and brought to a resolution. Pulse surveys in the teams showed clearly improved satisfaction with team leadership.

An industrial company does not want to be caught out by its first gender pay gap report. The problem: three pay systems, no uniform job evaluation, remuneration data scattered across two HR systems and assorted Excel lists.

I structured the undertaking as a twelve-week project in three steps. First, the data inventory: which pay components sit where, and in what quality? Second, we built – together with HR and with the works council informed early – a group-wide logic of ‘equal work and work of equal value’ based on an analytical evaluation grid. Third, the trial run: an internal test report following the logic of the EU Pay Transparency Directive, long before it fell due. Country-specific legal questions went to local law firms at each site for assurance.

The trial report was ready well ahead of the first deadline – including a cleansed data basis and a documented evaluation methodology. The management knows its numbers before they become reportable, and on that basis opted for a two-year adjustment budget rather than an expensive last-minute correction.

The trial run at a manufacturing company shows a gap of around 9% to women’s disadvantage in the ‘field sales’ category – not explainable by tenure or function. The stakes are known: from 5% of unexplained difference, the EU Pay Transparency Directive provides for in-depth joint pay assessments with employee representatives.

I analysed the causes case by case: the gap arose almost entirely in the variable components – historically, individually negotiated target bonuses and the allocation of high-revenue territories. From this we developed an action roadmap: objectified territory allocation, a uniform bonus systematic for new contracts, staged adjustment of legacy cases over two pay rounds. We involved the works council transparently from the start – as a partner in the solution, not a recipient of the problem. The law firm secured every adjustment under employment law.

The unexplained gap fell arithmetically below the critical threshold, without a single conflict situation with the works council. A side effect: the new territory and bonus logic also ended years of internal fairness debates among the field sales force.

A software company finds that not a single element of its recruiting complies with the transparency obligations of the EU Pay Transparency Directive – no salary information in job adverts, the last-salary question asked by default in first interviews, no documented criteria for starting salaries.

In a compact six-week project we first built salary bands per job family – the precondition for credible range disclosures. I reworked the advert templates, removed the salary-history question from all interview guides and trained the twelve interviewing leaders in a half-day session with practice sequences for the new salary conversations. Finally we defined who approves deviations from the band in future – including a documentation duty.

All new job adverts now run with salary ranges; the share of female applicants for developer roles has since risen measurably. The unplanned gain: the salary bands ended the internal sprawl in starting salaries that had produced new inequalities for years.

An industrial supplier repeatedly loses qualified women around parental leave – some do not return, others resign within two years of returning. There is no defined process: whether a return succeeds depends on the luck of the individual manager.

I built a binding return process with three fixed points: a contact conversation before the end of parental leave (role, scope, expectations on both sides), a structured re-entry conversation with a 90-day plan, a review after three months. Leaders received a guide and a short training – including the typical mistakes (‘the old tasks in 75% of the time’, tacit downgrading). We piloted the process with three returnees, whom I accompanied in four one-to-one sessions each on role clarity, negotiation and positioning.

All three pilot returnees were on board twelve months after their return – two of them with expanded responsibility. The process was rolled out as the standard; return and retention rates have since been fixed metrics in the annual people report to the management.

At a global company the first leadership level is entirely male; the second line holds several highly qualified women who are regularly ‘not quite ready’ when appointments come up – while external male candidates with comparable profiles are hired. The management wants to be able to fill the next division leaderships internally and with women, without any discount on quality.

We applied two levers in parallel. First, a twelve-month development programme for three candidates: I accompanied each of them individually in one-to-ones built around real leadership situations, we created targeted visibility elements (board presentations, project leads with executive exposure), and each received a sponsor from the executive team with a clear mandate. Second, we objectified appointment decisions: defined criteria and structured interviews instead of ‘gut feeling and similarity’.

Within 18 months, one of the vacant division leaderships was filled internally with a programme participant; a second candidate took on a major project lead as an interim step. All three are still with the company – previously, passed-over candidates in comparable constellations had regularly left within a year.

A consulting firm recruits at parity but loses women disproportionately between their third and fifth year – precisely the phase in which promotions are decided. The in-house explanation (‘family phase’) did not survive a first look at the data: most moved to competitors into larger roles.

My root-cause analysis drew on three sources: I analysed five years of exit and promotion data, held confidential interviews with twelve former and current female employees, and examined the de-facto promotion criteria. The core findings: informal pre-decisions on promotions in rooms without women, a visibility gap in project staffing, and a feedback pattern that attested diligence to women and potential to men. From this we derived three measures: transparent promotion windows with defined criteria, structured project staffing, calibrated potential conferences with a duty to cite facts rather than impressions.

In the second year after implementation, women’s exit rate in the critical cohort was level with men’s for the first time; the share of women in promotions rose clearly. The management now actively uses the metrics in its advisory board – and as an argument in recruiting.

A manufacturing company has grown through European acquisitions – and so has its HR landscape: five local HR units, differing processes, no shared governance. The management does not know whether it has too much or too little HR – only that strategic topics are left lying and leaders complain about HR support.

In a six-week check-up I spoke with the management, site leaders, all HR leads and works council chairs, and analysed roles, processes, metrics and interfaces. The finding: not too little capacity but the wrong distribution – 80% of HR time flowed into duplicated administration, while strategic roles existed only on paper. From this we developed a target picture: pooled administration, local HR partners with a clear mandate, two group-wide competence roles (recruiting, development) – with an 18-month implementation roadmap and clean works council involvement at each site.

For the first time, the management decided on the basis of a robust picture of numbers and targets. After implementation: the same HR headcount, but reliable group-wide metrics and an HR lead who sets her own topics in the executive meeting.

At a plant engineering company, HR delivers reliably – contracts, payroll, recruiting administration. But on every strategic question (reorganisation, succession, remuneration) the management brings in external consultants, because it does not trust HR with any of it. The head of HR is frustrated; so is the management.

I proposed not a structural project but work on the collaboration: first I moderated a clarification between the management and the head of HR – on mutual expectations and the honest diagnosis of why trust was lacking (HR argued in processes, the management thought in business risks). I then accompanied the head of HR for six months of sparring on two real strategic topics, succession planning for key positions and the remuneration framework – with the explicit goal that she takes both topics into the executive meeting herself. My part: structure, quality assurance, a dress rehearsal of the papers.

Both papers were presented by the head of HR and approved. The following year, for the first time, the management commissioned no external consultancy for comparable topics – proof that the ‘enable rather than replace’ approach holds. The sparring has continued since at a reduced rhythm: quarterly instead of weekly.

At a logistics company, the head of HR resigns in the middle of ongoing collective bargaining and site negotiations. Refilling the role will realistically take six to nine months; the team is experienced but leaderless, and the management cannot carry the works council talks itself.

I took on the interim assignment with a clear dual task. First, stabilisation: I led the three-person HR team, continued the works council talks without a break and prioritised the topics left lying. Second, the succession: I sharpened the requirements profile based on the construction sites actually found, contributed to the selection process and handed over in a structured way – with a 90-day plan for the new head.

The site negotiations were concluded without delay; no one left the HR team during the vacancy. The new head of HR took over a well-ordered house with a documented handover after seven months – and, unlike her predecessor, stayed closely connected to the management: the weekly conversation between management and HR established during the interim was kept.